About

There was a point in my life where I couldn't play organized soccer but had copious amounts of time to watch it. I figured that if I couldn't lace up my boots I might as well advance my knowledge of the game from a less sweaty and more serene vantage point - namely my parent’s couch. And thus began my journey to become a true student of the beautiful game.

I began by reading Jonathan Wilson’s excellent Inverting The Pyramid and a handful of coaching auto-biographies. I remember Carlo Ancelotti’s most vividly. Not for anything particularly noteworthy though. My biggest takeaway is that the man really loves his pasta. I also stumbled upon Micheal Cox’s excellent ZonalMarking.net and have been an ardent follow over the years. Sadly, it doesn’t look like he’s writing much on the site nowadays.

I'd wake up early in the morning and watch the Premier League from 7:30am till noon. I'd rush back home from school to catch the second half of Champions League games. I watched every match of the 2010 World Cup save one(sadly I couldn't repeated this feat during 2014 because I landed myself a big boy job). Alongside me was my trusty wide ruled notebook where I jotted down any interesting tactical tidbits that I happen to observe during the match. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of said notebook eluded me several years ago. Had I named it, I would have called it BoxToBoxTactics.

Disclaimer: I'm an Arsenal supporter so they do figure quite frequently in the games that I write about. Please accept my apologies for my melancholy tone in those match write ups. The last few years have been exceedingly long.